**The FTC Says Delete THIS Hidden Setting From Your Phone Tonight — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/ftc-delete-hidden-phone-setting/

Learn why the FTC urges deleting your phone's advertising ID to stop invasive tracking and protect your privacy from fraudsters.

## Key Takeaways

- Deleting your phone's advertising ID reduces ongoing tracking and profiling by advertisers and fraudsters.
- Your phone does not listen to your conversations; tracking comes from data linked to this ID.
- Past data linked to the advertising ID remains even after deletion, but future data collection is cut off.
- Seniors are disproportionately targeted by fraud schemes using data tied to advertising IDs.
- The FTC officially recommends deleting this setting, but misinformation about FBI warnings is common.

## What the video covers

- Your phone's advertising ID acts like a license plate that tracks your activity across apps and services.
- This ID is not your phone number or personal info but allows companies to build detailed profiles on you.
- Deleting this ID stops future tracking but does not erase past data collected.
- The FTC recommends deleting this hidden setting to reduce targeted advertising and fraud risks.
- Your phone is not listening to your conversations; tracking is based on data linked to the advertising ID.
- Apps legally collect this ID when you install them, but it enables extensive data sharing and profiling.
- Fraudsters use data tied to these IDs to create 'sucker lists' targeting vulnerable people, especially seniors.
- The FBI advises turning off data sharing to protect against overseas app risks, but no direct FBI warning exists about this setting.
- The video explains how to find and delete the advertising ID on iPhone and Android devices.
- The problem is widespread and legal but poses serious privacy and financial risks, especially to older adults.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to Phone Tracking and Misconceptions
2. 01:00 Expert Introduction and Fraud Background
3. 01:52 What the Advertising ID Is and Why It Matters
4. 02:31 How the Advertising ID Works Like a License Plate
5. 04:01 Examples of Data Collected and Its Uses
6. 05:29 Research Findings on Phone Listening Myths
7. 06:02 Why Deleting the ID Matters and Its Limits
8. 07:35 Clarifying FBI Notices and FTC Recommendations
9. 08:04 Real Fraud Cases and the Role of Advertising IDs
10. 11:05 Summary and Why Seniors Are Most at Risk

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the advertising ID on my phone?

The advertising ID is a unique identifier assigned to your device that apps and advertisers use to track your activity and build profiles for targeted ads.

Does deleting the advertising ID stop all tracking?

Deleting the advertising ID stops future tracking linked to that ID, but it does not erase data already collected before deletion.

Is my phone listening to my conversations to target ads?

No, research shows phones are not listening to your conversations; tracking is based on data linked to your advertising ID, not microphone recordings.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

You search for something one time. Just once. Maybe a hearing aid, maybe a cruise, maybe a lawyer. And for the next three weeks, that thing followed you. It was in your phone, on the television, in your email, on the machine your daughter uses. You never said it out loud to anybody. And it found you anyway. Everybody notices that. Almost everybody shrugs and decides the phone must be listening. It isn't. It's simpler than that. And it's worse.

00:16

Speaker A

uses. You never said it out loud to anybody. And it found you anyway. Everybody notices that. Almost everybody shrugs and decides the phone must be listening. It isn't. It's simpler than that. And it's worse.

00:31

Speaker A

Right now. Not your phone number. A different one. A string of letters and digits that was assigned to your device and never told to you. And it is the reason all of those companies knew it was the same person. And it is not only

00:45

Speaker A

advertisers buying the file it builds. My name is Frank Delaney. 32 years working fraud. Financial crimes with the police first, then I ran the anti-fraud unit inside a bank. I sat across the table for more than 3,000 people who got

01:00

Speaker A

advertisers buying the file it builds. My name is Frank Delaney. Thirty-two years working fraud. Financial crimes with the police first, then I ran the anti-fraud unit inside a bank. I sat across the table for more than 3,000 people who got

01:14

Speaker A

seconds. And then I'll give you three more that go with it. Because that number is only the first one. But before we get there, I want you to see what it actually does. Because the reason to delete it is not the ads. One thing here

01:26

Speaker A

taken. And I retired last year. The men who do this did not. The Federal Trade Commission says to delete that number off your phone. Tonight I'll show you exactly where it lives. On an iPhone and on an Android. And it takes about 20

01:39

Speaker A

the code at the top right of your screen, or it's the first link in the description. Made to sit in a drawer until the day you need it. Now, what that number is. Every phone has one.

01:52

Speaker A

seconds. And then I'll give you three more that go with it. Because that number is only the first one. But before we get there, I want you to see what it actually does. Because the reason to delete it is not the ads. One thing here

01:58

Speaker A

Think of a license plate bolted to your phone that only businesses can read. It isn't your name, it isn't your email, and that is exactly what makes people wave it off.

02:10

Speaker A

and there, I won't bring it up again. Everything I take apart on this channel and the exact words to use when somebody calls you knowing more than they should is written down in one place. It's called the Senior Fraud Protocol. Scan

02:19

Speaker A

The grocery app knows what you buy. The game you play at night knows what time you're awake. On its own, each one of those is nothing, but because all of them tag their notes with the same plate number, somebody sitting a long way from

02:31

Speaker A

the code at the top right of your screen, or it's the first link in the description. Made to sit in a drawer until the day you need it. Now, what that number is. Every phone has one.

02:46

Speaker A

It was collected in the open by apps you agreed to install, and it was legal.

02:51

Speaker A

On an Android it's called the advertising ID. On an iPhone it's the identifier for advertisers.

03:00

Speaker A

First, your phone is not listening to your conversations through the microphone. Researchers at Northeastern University went looking for exactly that. They tested more than 17,000 Android apps, watching what those apps sent out over the network, and they did

03:14

Speaker A

Think of a license plate bolted to your phone that only businesses can read. It isn't your name, it isn't your email, and that is exactly what makes people wave it off.

03:25

Speaker A

That's a real problem, and it's worth knowing, but it is not the microphone. You feel listened to because the file is that good, not because anybody is hearing you. Second, deleting this number does not erase what has already been

03:39

Speaker A

Here's the part that matters. Every app that can read that plate can also write to it. The weather app knows where you are four times a day.

03:55

Speaker A

videos going around right now telling you the FBI is warning you about this exact setting.

04:01

Speaker A

The grocery app knows what you buy. The game you play at night knows what time you're awake. On its own, each one of those is nothing, but because all of them tag their notes with the same plate number, somebody sitting a long way from

04:10

Speaker A

Not in any alert I could find. Now, the FBI did put out a notice this past March about phone apps built overseas. And one of the five things they told people to do was to turn off data sharing they don't

04:23

Speaker A

you can stack them into a single file. Where you sleep. Where you go on Tuesdays. What you were reading about at 11:00 at night. Whose phone is near yours? Over and over, week after week. Nobody broke into anything.

04:29

Speaker A

The agency that names it is the Federal Trade Commission in plain writing on its own consumer page. Somebody just decided three letters sounded scarier than three other letters. That's the whole story.

04:41

Speaker A

It was collected in the open by apps you agreed to install, and it was legal.

04:56

Speaker A

location data that company had been selling was tied to mobile advertising IDs. It was not anonymous, and it could match a specific device to the places that person had actually visited. Two weeks later, the same agency did the

05:10

Speaker A

Now, I want to be straight with you about three things, because there's a lot of nonsense attached to this subject, and the nonsense is what makes sensible people ignore the real part.

05:25

Speaker A

it. So, that's the top of the pipe. Now, let me show you the bottom.

05:29

Speaker A

First, your phone is not listening to your conversations through the microphone. Researchers at Northeastern University went looking for exactly that. They tested more than 17,000 Android apps, watching what those apps sent out over the network, and they did

05:44

Speaker A

Macromark pled guilty in federal court to helping run fraud schemes against older Americans. What Macromark sold were lists.

05:52

Speaker A

not find apps recording your conversations. What they did find was something else. A number of apps were quietly sending pictures and recordings of what was on the screen to outside companies.

05:58

Speaker A

Or who had already been taken once and were therefore likely to be taken again.

06:02

Speaker A

That's a real problem, and it's worth knowing, but it is not the microphone. You feel listened to because the file is that good, not because anybody is hearing you. Second, deleting this number does not erase what has already been

06:08

Speaker A

Inside that trade, those lists have a name. The people who buy and sell them call them sucker lists.

06:16

Speaker A

collected. That's gone. I'm not going to tell you otherwise. What it does is cut the thread, so that everything from tonight forward stops connecting back to everything before it. And third, since you're going to run into it, there are

06:21

Speaker A

And I would rather be careful than exciting. I cannot show you one federal case that follows a single piece of information from your advertising ID all the way to the man who called your mother on a Tuesday afternoon.

06:35

Speaker A

videos going around right now telling you the FBI is warning you about this exact setting.

06:48

Speaker A

collect and sell what your phone gives up tied to that number. And other companies sell lists of people worth targeting to criminals. And the wall between those two businesses is not a law and it is not a lock. It's a

07:01

Speaker A

I went and looked because I don't repeat things I haven't checked myself. The FBI has never named it. Not once.

07:07

Speaker A

And let me put one number on why this matters more for you than for your grandchildren. The FBI keeps a count of fraud reported by people over 60. In its report covering 2024, the number of complaints from that group came to

07:20

Speaker A

Not in any alert I could find. Now, the FBI did put out a notice this past March about phone apps built overseas. And one of the five things they told people to do was to turn off data sharing they don't

07:32

Speaker A

The typical loss was $83,000. And about 7,500 people over 60 reported losing more more 100,000 each. Those are reported numbers, which means they are the floor and not the ceiling, because most people never reported it all. If a

07:49

Speaker A

need. That's real, and it points the same direction. But, it does not name this number.

07:56

Speaker A

Now, the four things. The first one is the number we've been talking about and then three more that sit right next to it.

08:04

Speaker A

The agency that names it is the Federal Trade Commission in plain writing on its own consumer page. Somebody just decided three letters sounded scarier than three other letters. That's the whole story.

08:18

Speaker A

Then, and this is the one almost nobody finds, go back one screen and tap Apple advertising and turn off personalized ads.

08:28

Speaker A

Now, here is where this stops being about advertising. In January of 2024, the Federal Trade Commission barred a company called X-Mode Social from selling sensitive location data. Read the order and you find this. And I want you to hear it carefully. The raw

08:42

Speaker A

On newer phones, you'll see a line that says delete advertising ID and that's the one you want. Because it doesn't just ask nicely.

08:51

Speaker A

location data that company had been selling was tied to mobile advertising IDs. It was not anonymous, and it could match a specific device to the places that person had actually visited. Two weeks later, the same agency did the

09:00

Speaker A

On a Samsung, it sits in a different menu. If it isn't where I said, look under settings, then Google, then ads. It's in there somewhere on every phone that runs Android.

09:13

Speaker A

same thing to a company called M Market. And this past May, they settled with the third one, a company called Kochava, over selling location data linked to millions of phones. Three companies, two years, same number underneath all of

09:21

Speaker A

Apps now have to ask before they can follow you around and most people say no. The companies who measure this put the number who agrees somewhere between a third and a half. So, if you're on an iPhone, you may already be partly

09:34

Speaker A

it. So, that's the top of the pipe. Now, let me show you the bottom.

09:42

Speaker A

But that only covers other people's apps. It does not touch Apple's own and it does not touch anything you handed over yourself when you signed into something. That's why the second switch matters and that's why I had you turn

09:53

Speaker A

There's a business called list brokering. It's old, it's legal in its ordinary form, and it is exactly what it sounds like. Somebody assembles a list of people and sells it to whoever wants to reach them. In 2020, a firm called

10:01

Speaker A

Not a rough sense of your city. A list, the building, the day, the hour you arrived and the hour you left going back months. On the iPhone, this is called significant locations.

10:15

Speaker A

Macromark pled guilty in federal court to helping run fraud schemes against older Americans. What Macromark sold were lists.

10:25

Speaker A

It'll likely ask for your face or your passcode before it lets you look. That alone should tell you something because that's Apple itself treating this as sensitive. To be fair to Apple, they say that log is encrypted and that they

10:38

Speaker A

Names of people who have responded to offers before. People who were older or living alone.

10:51

Speaker A

turn the whole thing off. On an Android, the equivalent used to live in your Google account and for years it uploaded everywhere you went straight to Google servers. That's changed. Google has moved it onto the phone itself and it now comes switched

11:05

Speaker A

Or who had already been taken once and were therefore likely to be taken again.

11:16

Speaker A

Number four, and this is the one with the most in it. Every time you install something, it asks for permission.

11:23

Speaker A

The losses in that case came to at least nine and a half million dollars over 11 years.

11:37

Speaker A

Years later. This is what the government's own cybersecurity agency told senior officials to go and check after a foreign intelligence operation got into American phone networks.

11:47

Speaker A

Inside that trade, those lists have a name. The people who buy and sell them call them sucker lists.

11:52

Speaker A

On an iPhone, go to settings, then privacy and security, and work down the list one at a time.

11:59

Speaker A

I didn't invent that. That's their word for you. Now, I have to be careful here.

12:18

Speaker A

by permission. So, you can see every single app that has your microphone all at once. And for each one, ask a plain question. Does this thing need this to do its job? A torch does not need your contacts. A

12:32

Speaker A

And I would rather be careful than exciting. I cannot show you one federal case that follows a single piece of information from your advertising ID all the way to the man who called your mother on a Tuesday afternoon.

12:45

Speaker A

I'm using it. That one small change closes most of it. This is the step that actually takes time.

12:52

Speaker A

The lists in the Macromark case came from mailing records, not from phones. If somebody tells you otherwise, ask them for the case number. What I can tell you is that both ends of that pipe have been proven in court. Companies

13:00

Speaker A

Because if it never had the permission, there was nothing there to take. Now, let me tell you plainly what all four of these do, and what they don't.

13:09

Speaker A

collect and sell what your phone gives up tied to that number. And other companies sell lists of people worth targeting to criminals. And the wall between those two businesses is not a law and it is not a lock. It's a

13:23

Speaker A

They do not undo a thing that's already been collected. And they will not stop your phone from ringing. What they do is stop the file from growing. They cut the thread between what you did last year and what you do tomorrow. And they mean

13:37

Speaker A

purchase order. That's why I deleted it off my own phone. And off my mother's.

13:48

Speaker A

Now, if you're sitting there feeling foolish about a number you never knew existed, put that down right now.

13:53

Speaker A

And let me put one number on why this matters more for you than for your grandchildren. The FBI keeps a count of fraud reported by people over 60. In its report covering 2024, the number of complaints from that group came to

14:07

Speaker A

reason any of this is public is that a federal agency had to take three companies to court to make it so.

14:15

Speaker A

147,000. And the reported losses came to 4.8 billion dollars. Complaints up 46% in a single year. Losses up 43%.

14:27

Speaker A

setting, the advertising number, and tell me one thing. Was yours already off, or had it been on this whole time?

14:36

Speaker A

The typical loss was $83,000. And about 7,500 people over 60 reported losing more than 100,000 each. Those are reported numbers, which means they are the floor and not the ceiling, because most people never reported it all. If a

14:44

Speaker A

Because if I'm right about what you're going to find, nearly every one of you is about to open that menu and see it switched on.

14:50

Speaker A

plain answer like that is why you come here, go ahead and subscribe. It's free and it's the only thing I ever ask you for.

Topics: FTC advertising ID phone privacy data tracking fraud prevention mobile advertising senior fraud iPhone privacy Android privacy data sharing


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